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Author Topic: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?  (Read 1523 times)

Greentongue

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Since arranging scheduling for multiple people seems like a huge barrier to play these days, and games like MtG allow a misc collection of random people to gather at a table and play, are there RPGs that allow that as well?

How successful would the concept be do you think?
Would it require a selection of pre-gen characters? A public media shared world? What would work?

Obviously MMOs do this with mixed success, why not the paper versions?

Eirikrautha

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2020, 03:38:14 PM »
Since arranging scheduling for multiple people seems like a huge barrier to play these days, and games like MtG allow a misc collection of random people to gather at a table and play, are there RPGs that allow that as well?

How successful would the concept be do you think?
Would it require a selection of pre-gen characters? A public media shared world? What would work?

Obviously MMOs do this with mixed success, why not the paper versions?
You'd face a few issues, or at least changes from the normal RPG as played now.  You'd have to go back to a more old-school approach with very few choices during character construction.  Most abilities or skills a character can get need to be earned quickly in play.  It will end up more like a board game, honestly.  Take a look at something like Hero Quest as an example of a board game that straddles the line with RPG...

Chris24601

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2020, 05:51:31 PM »
Since arranging scheduling for multiple people seems like a huge barrier to play these days, and games like MtG allow a misc collection of random people to gather at a table and play, are there RPGs that allow that as well?

How successful would the concept be do you think?
Would it require a selection of pre-gen characters? A public media shared world? What would work?

Obviously MMOs do this with mixed success, why not the paper versions?
Pre-gens wouldn't be necessary, but a system that was relatively flat in terms of progression would be ideal so that the 5th level guy can be a bit ahead of a new 1st level, but not so far ahead that the 1st level can't contribute.

Palladium Books is actually a pretty solid example of a ruleset where level matters, but not so much that it's overwhelming on its own. Come to think of it 1e Palladium Fantasy characters aren't all that complex to make either.

More important though would be the setup. I'd suggest some sort of mega-dungeon where different teams of a larger party rotate in to clear a set of chambers and then rotate out for a fresh team to explore the next batch.

Honestly, think of a slightly more detailed and co-op focused version of the old Dungeon board game.

The other alternative would be to go with something like Palladium Books Robotech (use the default immediate post-Macross time period or the "Return of the Masters" book which covers basically combining everything from all the eras) where the PCs are mecha pilots who are sent on various short-duration missions (hit X installation, patrol Y route, investigate Z sensor blip) from a large forward base (big enough for all the players plus extras). Whoever is there that night gets assigned to the mission.

Another advantage to the latter is that barring really superior stats, the mecha's abilities are often more important than the pilot's so you've de facto reduced the "class options" to "which Mecha do you pilot" plus "what's your MOS/SOS." Put a cap on the mecha available (only the original recipe one-pilot Destroids is pretty common so Excalibur, Gladiator, Raidar-X and Spartan) and you effectively cap the available classes with just some secondary skills (are you a mechanic, a medic, communcations, scout, etc.) to further distinguish you.

Slipshot762

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2020, 06:22:51 PM »
D6 system has simple character sheets and generation, you can literally make a D6 character in less than a minute.

DocJones

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2020, 06:48:16 PM »
Since arranging scheduling for multiple people seems like a huge barrier to play these days, and games like MtG allow a misc collection of random people to gather at a table and play, are there RPGs that allow that as well?
Only two people showed up for our TTRPG session, so we played Steve Jackson's Wizard. 
We built characters and learned the rules in about an hour, maybe less.
It's a mini-game of Wizard dueling.  Wizard is a proto-version of The Fantasy Trip TTRPG.

Greentongue

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2020, 06:57:59 PM »
I had heard The Fantasy Trip was an easy to play game but have never been exposed to it.

Ratman_tf

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2020, 08:30:01 PM »
Since arranging scheduling for multiple people seems like a huge barrier to play these days, and games like MtG allow a misc collection of random people to gather at a table and play, are there RPGs that allow that as well?

How successful would the concept be do you think?
Would it require a selection of pre-gen characters? A public media shared world? What would work?

Obviously MMOs do this with mixed success, why not the paper versions?

Dunno about D&D, but Pathfinder/Starfinder has the society and when I've gone, the GM would have a selection of pregens or you can play your own characters. We would occasionally have someone just join and play at the moment without too much hassle.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
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Greentongue

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2020, 01:04:00 PM »
Anyone have experience with "Through Sunken Lands and Other Adventures"?

It advertises:
Lots of times, we want to play a roleplaying game but just don’t have the time for all the prep work involved. No more. Through Sunken Lands is a kit to make a motley crew of ruthless sellswords, gifted sorceresses, and cunning thieves, and send them off in search of gold and glory. Now we have this simple swords and sorcery roleplaying game that gives a group all the tools they need to play an exciting adventure in a single evening, no homework, no fuss.

Is it just talk or does it actually work as implied?

Spinachcat

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2020, 01:23:01 PM »
Here's a review on DriveThru


This year there was a great Christmas present from Flatland Games, which one or the other knows from the game Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures. This time you don’t slip into the role of young people in a small village, but go out into the wide world, plunder and conquer cities and lands and discover lost ruins.

The world:

Like Beyond the Wall (BtW), Through Sunken Lands (TSL) is a sandbox, but offers a little more setting. The world is roughly described and there are maps that can be used as a group. If you don’t want that, you can simply make your own maps and play on them, as in BtW. The setting is based on classic works of the Sword & Sorcery genre such as Robert E. Howard’s Conan, Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar and Moorcock’s Eternal Champion. The description of the setting is long enough to get a rough picture and short enough to leave plenty of room for interpretation and your own creations.

The system:

Through Sunken Lands is based on the same system as BtW and is fully compatible. This is referred to several times in the book, the playbooks of both games can be used in the other game. TSL is an OSR and a d20 is used for all rolls (except damage). For normal tests you have to roll equal to or below your attribute value, with skills giving a bonus of +2. Saving throws and attack throws, however, must be equal to or greater than their respective values in order to be successful.

Characters are created through playbooks. There are three classes: warrior, rogue and mage, although there are also multiclassing characters. The playbook gives you background and the story of your character. That is the great strength of TSL and BtW, you have an interesting character within a few minutes. In TSL you start at level 2 and are therefore quite competent. You play characters like the barbaric conqueror (Conan sends his regards), the pirate captain or the temple keeper. Each class comes with its own talents and skills. Attribute increases and possible spells obtained are selected at random through the playbooks. Spells are divided into three categories: cantrips, spells, and rituals. A mage can conjure up as many spells a day as his level is, but these succeed automatically. For the other two variants, he has to make a check. There are a number of spells in the book, but most OSR spells should be convertible easily.

Fighting and healing are kept very minimalistic and the equipment part of the book is also very short. In general, the group in TSL and BtW is left with a lot of their own if they want more content in these areas. A great addition in TSL is the mass combat system. Anyone expecting diverse, tactical options here is out of place. Instead, you can handle film-like battles very quickly, in which the characters can turn the outcome of the battle in highlight scenes. These battles happen in three phases: preparation, actual battle, and aftermath. In the first phase, the respective sides can explore the battlefield, drill the troops or prepare tactics. The result of the tests later influences the course of the battle. In the actual battle, the respective leaders roll dice how they lead the battle and the previous preparations, as well as the number of soldiers, give corresponding bonuses or penalties. After this roll, the players can play a scene of how they want to influence the battle, be it a duel with an important opponent, a battle with countless soldiers or even secret missions. All of these actions are then counted towards the leader’s tide of combat roll and a table shows how successful the battle was. Then the group can choose from options what they want to do with their successes (and failures), be it capturing opponents, causing damage, looting or even taking losses themselves.

Another very interesting part is travel by sea. The group has the choice between fast travel (i.e. usually without events and the journey takes place according to the SL’s narration), the hex field exploration from Further Afield (a BtW supplement that is then required) or a medium solution. The length of the voyage is taken into account and a test by the navigator or captain decides on the number of encounters.

The heart of TSL, in addition to the playbooks, are the scenario packs. In combination of the two, a game master can play an adventure without preparation. While the players are building their characters with the playbooks, the game master rolls the dice on several tables to create enemies, dungeons and plot twists. You also get hooks for further adventures. In some tables the gm fills in npcs, places or objects created through the playbooks to get the players invested.

The book:

Through Sunken Lands has 217 pages and is full color. The layout and typesetting is as in BtW and can be read properly. Some of the pictures are in full color and partly remind me of The One Ring, while others are completely blue. I would have liked a uniform style, although I generally like the artwork. The game comes with three very different scenario packs and nine playbooks, a good starting point for your first adventures.

Who might be interested in Through Sunken Lands and Other Adventures:

Players and GMs who prefer less rules and more flexibility
People who like to create things themselves
Players who focus on narrative rather than mechanics
Who might not be interested in Through Sunken Lands and Other Adventures:

Players and GMs who want a set of rules that covers everything
People who need a comprehensive description of the setting
Players who want complex character development


Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!]

Mishihari

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I did a game like this and have told the story elsewhere on this forum, so I'll just summarize very briefly here.  My son and his friends had never played an RPG, but he wanted a D&D party for his 10th birthday.  I wrote an extremely simple system on a half page of paper, made some pregens and a short adventure, and we all had a great time with it, including me.

I think there were a few things that made this work well.

1)  Extremely simple, intuitive rules.  I told the rules for tracking health and magic power at the start, and the rest they learned on the fly, or in many cases didn't need to learn because I knew the rules and the rules matched up with their knowledge of how things actually work in real life.  Attack and defense rolls, movement and range all were picked up quickly.

2)  Pregens with understood roles.  There was a mage, a fast, light fighter, an archer, a tank, a stealth guy, and several others that they just knew what to do with them once they had them.  All of their abilities were written right on the character sheets.

3)  A willingness by everyone to just go do things without needing to understand the ins and outs of the rules.  If we had held up the game so someone could learn how to figure probabilities, it would have sucked the fun right out of it.  They trusted me to map their actions onto the rules and be fair about it, which I did, and things moved right along.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2021, 04:22:02 AM by Mishihari »

Greentongue

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2021, 08:25:55 AM »
Something like you are describing in a "West Marches" style game sounds like it could work.
I suspect the most difficult thing would be finding players willing to go with the flow and not try to exploit the system.

Two Crows

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2021, 01:25:08 PM »
There are tons of board games that do this now.  Versions with a GM-role, and versions where the game takes on the GM-role.

You have the Descent series, Runebound, Dungeons & Dragons board games like "Wrath of Ashardalon", Call of Cthulhu board games like "Mansions of Madness", and tons more.

They have characters, leveling up, some of them have puzzles/mysteries, loot, etc.

Check out BoardGameGeek for more options than you can shake a stick at.
Here is an example for Mansions of Madness:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/205059/mansions-madness-second-edition
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Two Crows

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2021, 03:42:17 PM »
As an addition, here is the top rated game on BGG right now.

Gloomhaven:

"Gloomhaven is a game of Euro-inspired tactical combat in a persistent world of shifting motives. Players will take on the role of a wandering adventurer with their own special set of skills and their own reasons for traveling to this dark corner of the world. Players must work together out of necessity to clear out menacing dungeons and forgotten ruins. In the process, they will enhance their abilities with experience and loot, discover new locations to explore and plunder, and expand an ever-branching story fueled by the decisions they make.

This is a game with a persistent and changing world that is ideally played over many game sessions. After a scenario, players will make decisions on what to do, which will determine how the story continues, kind of like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. Playing through a scenario is a cooperative affair where players will fight against automated monsters using an innovative card system to determine the order of play and what a player does on their turn.
"


It's a board game.  Group of total strangers can sit down and play on the spot.
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Greentongue

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #13 on: January 03, 2021, 03:55:25 PM »
Does sound interesting. Are board games the only practical option then?

Two Crows

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Re: Game Like Magic the Gathering Where You Can Gather A Few Randoms And Play?
« Reply #14 on: January 03, 2021, 04:14:14 PM »
Some of the "board games" are actually card games.

See Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129437/legendary-marvel-deck-building-game

"Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game is set in the Marvel Comics universe. To set up the game, players choose a mastermind villain (Magneto, Loki, Dr. Doom, Red Skull in the base game), stack that particular villain's attack cards underneath it, then modify the villain deck as needed based on that villain's particular scheme. Players then choose a number of hero decks – Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, etc. – and shuffle them together; since players use only a handful of hero decks out of the fifteen included, the hero deck can vary widely in terms of what's available.

Over the course of the game, players will recruit powerful hero cards to add to their deck in order to build a stronger and more resourceful deck. Players need to build both their recruitment powers (to enlist more heroes) and their fighting ability (to combat the villains who keep popping up to cause trouble). Players recruit heroes from an array of five cards, with empty slots refilled as needed. At the start of a player's turn, he reveals a villain and adds it to the row of villains. This row has a limited number of spaces, and if it fills up, the earliest villain to arrive escapes, possibly punishing the heroes in some way. Some villains also take an action when showing up for the first time, such as kidnapping an innocent bystander. The villain deck also contains "master strike" cards, and whenever one of these shows up, the mastermind villain (controlled by the game) takes a bonus action.

As players fight and defeat villains, they collect those cards, which will be worth points at game's end. Players can also fight the mastermind; if a player has enough fighting power, he claims one of the attack cards beneath the mastermind, which has a particular effect on the game. If all of these cards are claimed, the game ends and players tally their points to see who wins. If the mastermind completes his scheme, however – having a certain number of villains escape, for example, or imposing a certain number of wounds on the heroes – then the players all lose.

Hero decks in the base game: Gambit, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Emma Frost, Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Storm, Captain America, Nick Fury, Rogue, Cyclops, Hulk, Wolverine, Deadpool
"
If I stop replying, it either means I've lost interest in the topic or think further replies are pointless.  I don't need the last word, it's all yours.